skullguise
Headphoneus Supremus
I had bought a Revelation Audio Labs (RAL) cable some time ago to replace the stock one on my AKG K271S headphones. The difference was large, and very evident.
But is it worth spending so much money on a cable? Especially when it costs more than the phones themselves? Some will say yes, some no. Me, I'm happy with the gains I got.
I just got the opportunity to compare 3 after-market cables, thanks to the generosity of davederek and the recent purchase of another cable.
So I had some listening last night and more tonight, and compared the RAL cable to Dave's Zu cable, and the Sweetcome cable I just received today. Here are my thoughts.....
First, my system:
* Source = Rega Apollo, initially standalone, but mostly feeding Oritek 2.5A DAC
* Amp = Eddie Current EC/SS most of the time, but also a DIY M^3 and the Eddie Current Lunch Box (with 200ohm adapter cable to best drive the AKG's)
* Cables: TG Audio SLVR power cord for Rega; Black Sands Violet for DAC. EC/SS comes with large wall-wart, I used a Eupen filtered cord for the M^3, and an Audioquest NRG 2-prong for the Lunch Box. Gregg Straley Reality cables (special version wire and Vampire connectors) for IC's.
* Music: Carpenters 'Gold' XRCD, Ani Dfranco 'Up Up Up Up Up Up,' and Propaganda 'Outside World' remix CD. Tonight, I added a couple tracks from Johnny Cash's 'American V' in addition to the others
The characteristics of the cables seemed to carry pretty much throughout all amps, so I'll just describe what I heard overall, without specific mention to amp.
Sweetcome
-----------
This is a less expensive cable, a little stiff, with a techflex covering. The cable wasn't too microphonic at all. The sound with all the recordings was better than the stock cable as I remember, but still lacked a little bit of life. Dynamics not so great, mid to high frequency detail/focus a little looser, but overall more detractive in nature.
On all the CD's, nuances that I heard in the other cables were a little obscured here. There is a fair amount of echo and reverb in several of the songs across CD's, but it didn't come across as clearly with the Sweetcome.
Vocals were fairly clean and smooth, but the upper registers seemed to lose a little life comparably.
Overall, a good cheap replacement cable, but it still won't get the best from the 271S.
Zu Cable
--------
From the first track on propaganda, the first CD I played with this cable on, it was night and day compared to the Sweetcome. Much more in the way of detail, and better image focus and voice/instrument separation. The highs were more extended, but still missing a certain air that caused some of the music to sound more artificial.
The soundstage grew bigger as well, and I heard some artifacts that sounded like they came from the wall behind me.
Voices fared better overall, with more clarity. Dynamics were better, too. Bass guitar on Ani Difranco's CD, and synthesized bass from Propaganda, seemed to be more snappy and tight, while still fairly extended in depth (the AKG's are no basshead phones, but they gave a sense of what the deepest bass fundamentals were like). I would say the depth of bass was better with the Zu than the Sweetcome, but not by a lot. What WAS clearly better was the tightness and definition of that bass.
What sounded like a very slight glare in the mids exacerbated the lack of air in the highs, making it stand out more. There are good details int he mids and lower highs, but sometimes it came across as borderline sibilance.
The Zu did so many things so much better than stock or Sweetcome, I could probably live with it for a long time. I would pretty easily adjust to the slight lack of air, as it's kind of icing on the cake.
RAL
---
As you know from above, I own these. So take that into consideration when you read this. But bottom line, I clearly preferred the RAL to either of the other 2 cables, and it FAR surpassed stock.
The RAL did just about everything good that the Zu did. The only exception might be instrument and voice focus within the total soundstage. The RAL had an even bigger soundstage than the Zu, but it may have been just slightly less precise in image placement.
The sounds themselves seemed to have more weight to them, thereby making them seemingly larger in size. Not unrealistically bloated, but I’m not sure which one is more accurate.
Detail retrieval was great, better than the Zu. Some background noises and reverb were even more clear with the RAL than the Zu. There is a great track for soundstage and ambient detail on Ani Difranco's CD. It's called 'Angel Food,' and features some well recorded and diverse images, and some background voices as someone plays around in the studio. One of the voices says "I have no idea" when asked about some studio trickery someone did. With the Sweetcome, you barely discern it. With the Zu, you can hear the voice clearly, and with theRAL you hear what he says the clearest.
The air that was missing a bit with the Zu was mostly returned with the RAL. It gave a little more balance to the sound.
Bass was on par with the Zu, maybe a slight bit better in total weight. With the Zu, it went deep and tight (for the AKG); same with the RAL, but I got a better sense of it.
The Zu is the most expensive of the cables. It lists for $239/2M, and my 3M RAL was that same price. The RAL has the most microphonic cable, more if you move it - the techflex rubbing definitely carried into the phones the most of the 3 cables. The Zu was in the middle of the pack for microphonics.
Conclusion
----------
I liked this RAL cable the most, and by a fair margin. It offers the best overall sound, and many specific individual aspects of the sound are best with the RAL, too. All the cables are better than stock, and I imagine they could be enjoyed quite a bit. But once I heard my personal best in my system, I found it tougher to go back.
I hope I conveyed well enough what I heard. I just received a used RAL Sennheiser cable today, I will play with that on my 580's; but I bet that I will get some pretty impressive improvements over stock from that, too!
Finally, a word about Brad at RAL. Because of a sudden backlog of orders, my AKG cable took about 2 weeks longer than estimated. It took a couple emails to get a reply when he was running late, but he was ever the gentleman and very apologetic. I would not hesitate at all to deal with him again; an extremely nice person, and an excellent product.
Thanks,
Todd - skullguise
But is it worth spending so much money on a cable? Especially when it costs more than the phones themselves? Some will say yes, some no. Me, I'm happy with the gains I got.
I just got the opportunity to compare 3 after-market cables, thanks to the generosity of davederek and the recent purchase of another cable.
So I had some listening last night and more tonight, and compared the RAL cable to Dave's Zu cable, and the Sweetcome cable I just received today. Here are my thoughts.....
First, my system:
* Source = Rega Apollo, initially standalone, but mostly feeding Oritek 2.5A DAC
* Amp = Eddie Current EC/SS most of the time, but also a DIY M^3 and the Eddie Current Lunch Box (with 200ohm adapter cable to best drive the AKG's)
* Cables: TG Audio SLVR power cord for Rega; Black Sands Violet for DAC. EC/SS comes with large wall-wart, I used a Eupen filtered cord for the M^3, and an Audioquest NRG 2-prong for the Lunch Box. Gregg Straley Reality cables (special version wire and Vampire connectors) for IC's.
* Music: Carpenters 'Gold' XRCD, Ani Dfranco 'Up Up Up Up Up Up,' and Propaganda 'Outside World' remix CD. Tonight, I added a couple tracks from Johnny Cash's 'American V' in addition to the others
The characteristics of the cables seemed to carry pretty much throughout all amps, so I'll just describe what I heard overall, without specific mention to amp.
Sweetcome
-----------
This is a less expensive cable, a little stiff, with a techflex covering. The cable wasn't too microphonic at all. The sound with all the recordings was better than the stock cable as I remember, but still lacked a little bit of life. Dynamics not so great, mid to high frequency detail/focus a little looser, but overall more detractive in nature.
On all the CD's, nuances that I heard in the other cables were a little obscured here. There is a fair amount of echo and reverb in several of the songs across CD's, but it didn't come across as clearly with the Sweetcome.
Vocals were fairly clean and smooth, but the upper registers seemed to lose a little life comparably.
Overall, a good cheap replacement cable, but it still won't get the best from the 271S.
Zu Cable
--------
From the first track on propaganda, the first CD I played with this cable on, it was night and day compared to the Sweetcome. Much more in the way of detail, and better image focus and voice/instrument separation. The highs were more extended, but still missing a certain air that caused some of the music to sound more artificial.
The soundstage grew bigger as well, and I heard some artifacts that sounded like they came from the wall behind me.
Voices fared better overall, with more clarity. Dynamics were better, too. Bass guitar on Ani Difranco's CD, and synthesized bass from Propaganda, seemed to be more snappy and tight, while still fairly extended in depth (the AKG's are no basshead phones, but they gave a sense of what the deepest bass fundamentals were like). I would say the depth of bass was better with the Zu than the Sweetcome, but not by a lot. What WAS clearly better was the tightness and definition of that bass.
What sounded like a very slight glare in the mids exacerbated the lack of air in the highs, making it stand out more. There are good details int he mids and lower highs, but sometimes it came across as borderline sibilance.
The Zu did so many things so much better than stock or Sweetcome, I could probably live with it for a long time. I would pretty easily adjust to the slight lack of air, as it's kind of icing on the cake.
RAL
---
As you know from above, I own these. So take that into consideration when you read this. But bottom line, I clearly preferred the RAL to either of the other 2 cables, and it FAR surpassed stock.
The RAL did just about everything good that the Zu did. The only exception might be instrument and voice focus within the total soundstage. The RAL had an even bigger soundstage than the Zu, but it may have been just slightly less precise in image placement.
The sounds themselves seemed to have more weight to them, thereby making them seemingly larger in size. Not unrealistically bloated, but I’m not sure which one is more accurate.
Detail retrieval was great, better than the Zu. Some background noises and reverb were even more clear with the RAL than the Zu. There is a great track for soundstage and ambient detail on Ani Difranco's CD. It's called 'Angel Food,' and features some well recorded and diverse images, and some background voices as someone plays around in the studio. One of the voices says "I have no idea" when asked about some studio trickery someone did. With the Sweetcome, you barely discern it. With the Zu, you can hear the voice clearly, and with theRAL you hear what he says the clearest.
The air that was missing a bit with the Zu was mostly returned with the RAL. It gave a little more balance to the sound.
Bass was on par with the Zu, maybe a slight bit better in total weight. With the Zu, it went deep and tight (for the AKG); same with the RAL, but I got a better sense of it.
The Zu is the most expensive of the cables. It lists for $239/2M, and my 3M RAL was that same price. The RAL has the most microphonic cable, more if you move it - the techflex rubbing definitely carried into the phones the most of the 3 cables. The Zu was in the middle of the pack for microphonics.
Conclusion
----------
I liked this RAL cable the most, and by a fair margin. It offers the best overall sound, and many specific individual aspects of the sound are best with the RAL, too. All the cables are better than stock, and I imagine they could be enjoyed quite a bit. But once I heard my personal best in my system, I found it tougher to go back.
I hope I conveyed well enough what I heard. I just received a used RAL Sennheiser cable today, I will play with that on my 580's; but I bet that I will get some pretty impressive improvements over stock from that, too!
Finally, a word about Brad at RAL. Because of a sudden backlog of orders, my AKG cable took about 2 weeks longer than estimated. It took a couple emails to get a reply when he was running late, but he was ever the gentleman and very apologetic. I would not hesitate at all to deal with him again; an extremely nice person, and an excellent product.
Thanks,
Todd - skullguise
